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LONDON - Harry Potter fans are queued outside book stores around the world waiting for a copy of the seventh and final instalment of the boy wizard's saga that will finally reveal his fate after months of speculation.
Dressed as witches, Death Eaters, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid and plain old non-magical Muggles, die-hard followers braved torrential rain in London.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" hits the shelves in Britain at a minute past midnight Saturday (11.01am today NZT), in a release carefully orchestrated to maximise suspense and sales from London and New York to Mumbai and Australia's Outback.
In New York City, Barnes & Noble, the world's largest book retailer, throws a "Midnight Magic Costume Party" at its Union Square store that will be webcast live, while Borders Group is holding a "Grand Hallows Ball."
More than 200 fans, including many from overseas, gathered outside a book shop in central London. Some guessed who author JK Rowling meant when she said last year that at least two characters would die in book seven and one be given a reprieve.
"Everyone says he (Harry) is going to die," said Sinead Kelly, who travelled from the Netherlands with her boyfriend. "I think he's going to live."
In Britain, a phone counselling service for children expects a surge in calls when readers learn who is killed.
Stores in Taiwan and India are laying on "magic breakfasts" for early customers and a Sydney shop is taking fans aged from two to 84 on a train ride to a secret location to get the book.
The anticipation has survived a series of leaks of the contents of the book on the Internet, both real and fake, and a mistake by a US online retailer that meant as many as 1200 copies were sent to buyers days ahead of publication.
Rowling, 41, said she was "staggered" when at least two US newspapers ran reviews on Thursday based on copies obtained ahead of publication.
On Friday, French newspaper Le Parisien published a three-paragraph summary of the final book's epilogue, printing it upside down to give readers a chance to look away.
The leaks and spoilers have been a headache for Potter publishers, who are believed to have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to keep the book's contents a secret.
But they may take comfort from the fact that most fans do not know what happens and do not want to until they get a copy on what has been dubbed in the media as "P-Day". Families are imposing news blackouts at their homes to avoid disappointment.
"I don't want anyone telling me the ending," said Aniket Desai, a young Potter fan in Mumbai.
Just 13 years ago Rowling was an unemployed single mother, without a publisher or agent, but she is now the world's first dollar billionaire writer after the success of her first six novels and the Hollywood movies based on them.
The six books, starting with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1997, have sold 325 million copies and the first five movies in the film franchise have amassed around $4 billion ($NZ5.1 billion) at the global box office.
- REUTERS
